


Pym's Education

by maracolleenbanks



Category: Dreamwalkers Universe
Genre: Coffee Shops, College, Gen, Isla Virgo (Dreamwalkers), Professors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 11:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15290910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maracolleenbanks/pseuds/maracolleenbanks
Summary: An academic from Isla Virgo takes a job at an American university and experiences culture shock.





	Pym's Education

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dreamwalkers Universe](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/404340) by Siren Tycho and Mara Colleen Banks. 



They do things differently here, Pym muttered as the barista waved to Pym from the kitchen before going back to shaping and placing tiny rounds of dough on a cookie sheet. The barista’s work was painstakingly slow, and the barista was clearly intent on finishing this task before the barista attended to customers. 

They do things differently here, Pym muttered again when the phone rang, and the barista slammed the oven shut and sprinted for it. 

They do things differently here, Pym muttered again and again and again as the barista and the person on the other end of the line talked about a large order of sandwiches—“The pickles are gluten free, yes.”—, the weather, their children, and whether or not they thought it was likely that a ballot measure creating a nature reserve for ducks was likely to pass in the next election. 

Pym turned to examine the clock tower out the window. Pym’s first lecture on scarcity economics was due to start at the University of California in fifteen minutes, and Pym was tempted to skip the coffee and deliver the lecture without stimulants. It was a gamble. Pym had been standing there so long the barista couldn’t possibly take much longer now to come to the register, but Pym knew it wouldn’t do to allow what scarcity economists called “sunk cost” to influence a decision. Pym had been attempting to think like the locals since stepping out of Limbo and onto the main street in Berkeley. Mostly this meant using these principles of scarcity economics to inform simple decisions such as the acquisition of substances. Pym, after all, wanted to be understood, and Pym needed to make an extra effort to be understood since adopting English’s silly use of gendered pronouns was simply a bridge too far.

Finally, the barista hung up the phone and came to the counter to take Pym’s order. At least, Pym thought that the barista was there to take Pym’s order. Pym started to order a small coffee with a price that was impossible to gauge. The first rule of scarcity economies is that value is entirely arbitrary. Pym’s services at the university as an assistant professor were valued at approximately one percent of those of a young person Pym had read about in a periodical who pouted at cameras and paid other people to design face paint palettes with their name on them. Before Pym could request a small cup of coffee, however, the barista asked Pym to talk about the weather. 

”The weather is fine,” Pym said. “The weather is always fine in California, except when it is raining… What is the colloquialism? Buckets? Even then I am given to understand the rain comes as a relief. I don’t know for sure about the weather, since I have been on Earth for less than a week, and a week surely isn’t nearly long enough to make any definitive statements about something as subtly nuanced as the weather—at least, where I come from. Surely, you are the expert on the weather and should be lecturing me?”

The barista looked a Pym blankly, and Pym suspected there was more to the question about the weather than a desire to understand the weather, that this was smalltalk and had some purpose. Bonding, maybe? Pym had no desire to bond with this individual. 

Pym wanted coffee. Black. Pym said so, and the barista looked hurt. 

Pym didn’t like hurting the barista, but Pym believed efficiency was the sincerest form of etiquette, a sign that you believe the time of others to be as important as your own. It wasn’t as if the barista didn’t have enough to do. A line was forming out the door, and Pym had every intention of paying the barista the courtesy Pym wished, but the barista didn’t seem to care a bit about politeness or the line. The barista wanted to know about the weather and Pym’s preferred coffee bean’s nation of origin. 

Pym sighed. Some political thing probably. If Pym couldn’t be polite, Pym could at least have charity. That was, after all, why he was here, to educate the peoples of this lost planet on the joys of civilization and worlds outside in Dream. 

Pym looked at the list of choices: Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Mexico, Hawaii. Pym could list half a dozen social issues in each of these places, but what any of these things had to do with coffee, Pym had no idea whatsoever. 

“Ethiopia needs it the most, I suppose, don’t they?” Pym asked. The barista looked confused. “The money, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” the barista said, “but I can tell you that is a good blend. Notes of vanilla and cherry. We roasted it ourselves this morning.”

The barista stood a little taller, clearly proud, and there was no choosing any of the others after that. 

Pym handed over a few dollar bills, and the barista finally started to pick up speed. 

Maybe that was the secret, Pym thought. Perhaps, people move faster in scarcity economies if you wave money at them. It seemed so embarrassingly obvious, but Pym took comfort in the fact that it could not have been reasonably tested for from Isla Virgo. Pym resolved to start experimenting immediately and to try it the next time a lecture time was imminent.


End file.
